Journal of Pharmaceutical Research International 32(3): 61-68, 2020; Article no.JPRI.55733 ISSN: 2456-9119 (Past name: British Journal of Pharmaceutical Research, Past ISSN: 2231-2919, NLM ID: 101631759) Medication Errors Identification Rates by Healthcare Students Muhammad Shahid Iqbal1*, Nehad J. Ahmed1 and Muhammad Zahid Iqbal2 1Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-kharj, 11942, Saudi Arabia. 2Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacy Practice, Faculty of Pharmacy, AIMST University, 08100, Bedong, Kedah Darulaman, Malaysia. Authors’ contributions This work was carried out in collaboration among all authors. Authors MSI and MZI designed the study, performed the initial statistical analyses, wrote the protocol and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. Authors NJA and MZI managed the refined analyses and revision of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Article Information DOI:10.9734/JPRI/2020/v32i330414 Editor(s): (1) Dr. Wenbin Zeng, Central South University, China. Reviewers: (1) Victor B. Oti, Nasarawa State University, Nigeria. (2) Ajay Auddy, The University of Burdwan, India. Complete Peer review History: http://www.sdiarticle4.com/review-history/55733 Received 22 January 2020 Accepted 30 March 2020 Original Research Article Published 31 March 2020 ABSTRACT Introduction: Medication errors caused devastating consequences affecting both the healthcare system and the patient’s trust. Junior doctors, pharmacists, and nurses are prone to make these mistakes. Thus, this study served a purpose to evaluate the pharmacological knowledge of the healthcare students (HCSs) i.e. pharmacy, medical, and nursing studentsthrough detecting errors in the prescriptions, as this will reflect their performance once they come in real practice. Methodology: A cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted using a validated research tool consisting ofdemographics attributes (gender, race, duration of pre-university and age) as well as three prescriptions. The research tool was distributed to final year HCSs. Demographic data of the respondents were required to investigate the contributing factors in medication errors’ identification. Data obtained were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics by using SPSS ver. 22. Results: 197 students responded to this study. Findings show that pharmacy students yield high percentages compared to medical and nursing students in identifying errors in the prescriptions. 91.1% of pharmacy students were successful in recognizing the errors in prescription 1, 55.0% in _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ *Corresponding author: E-mail: [email protected]; Iqbal et al.; JPRI, 32(3): 61-68, 2020; Article no.JPRI.55733 prescription 2 whereas 96.2% in prescription 3. There wasa significantassociation betweenthe age of the respondents and their ability in identifying the errors (p=0.012). No significant relationship was observed between race, gender and duration of pre-university in identifying the mistakes in the prescriptions (p>0.05). Conclusion: Pharmacy students had the highest percentage ofmedication error identification rates probably in light of the pharmacy curriculum focuses mainly on pharmacology and therapeutic monitoring. This study portrays the importance of additional clinical training in undergraduate programs to enhance student’s pharmacological knowledge and their attitude towards patient safety practices. Keywords: Medication errors; healthcare students; patient safety; pharmacy. 1. INTRODUCTION increasebenefits [13]. Chances of occurance of medication errors usually arise during dose A medication error is any preventable adverse calculations, dosage regimen changes, the rout event that can cause or lead to patients harm of drug administrations, andduring the drug while the patients are under the supervision of a dispensing process. These errors could be healthcare provider [1]. Types of medication caused by any healthcare professional i.e. the errors include prescribing errors, medication pharmacist, physician or nurse, and inboth administration errors, dispensing errors and inpatients or outpatients [14,15]. patient compliance errors [2]. These errors can be due to lack of experience or knowledge about A study done in Malaysia by Elkamietal. revealed the medication, failure to apply the fundamental that the majority of final year pharmacy students rule, misspelling a medication name and hada lack of knowledge about pharmacovigilance ignorance of important information such as and adverse drug reactions [16]. In addition to patient allergy [3,4,5]. Undeniably, there is an that, it was found that physicians’ trainees urgent need to practically train the HCSs in how depend on the pharmacist to check all the to screen the prescriptions appropriately, how to medication errors in their prescriptions [17]. Even diminish prescription-related errors and though drug treatments are the responsibility of avoidmedication administration errors [6,7]. both physicians and pharmacists, nurses are Though in the past, some of the studies counted also involved when it comes to drug the total number of dispensing errors by using administration. According to Page and Mc self-reporting systemsbut these studies did not Kinney, current pharmacology content is evaluatethe clinical skills of the HCSs insufficient within the nursing program [18]. inmedication error identification rates.In these studies, the total number of errors that occurred Hence, it is important to evaluate the rate of during medicationdispensing was known identifying medication errors among the HCSs as because they only counted the number of this will reflect their knowledge and skills after dispensing errors,not their causes [8,9]. they practice as healthcare professionals. Information regarding the knowledge of students Medication errors can result in devastating in this issue may provide data in formulating consequences such as compromising patient strategies to improve patients’ safety. It was confidence in the healthcare system, increase hypothesized that there will be significant healthcare cost and may even result in serious differences in medication error identification rates mortality. It is the main cause of an adverse among pharmacy, medical and nursing students. event in every 6.5% hospital admissions [10]. The main objective of this study was to compare There had been several cases reported in which the ability of HCSs in identifying errors, while the people being killed or paralyzed due to wrong second objective is to explore factors that drug administration by spinal injection since 1985 contribute to the differences in the rate of [11]. Besides that, a study shows that the medication errors. medication error rate can be as high as 40% in Malaysia [12]. Drug safety is not a static concept. This study aimed to evaluate the rate of The current perception of the general public identification of medication errors among HCSs. about healthcare providers has been changed Contributing factors such as gender, race, and perceiving them more equipped with evidence- duration of pre-university were further explored based pharmacotherapeutics knowledge and whether they affect medication error identification improved clinical skills to minimize risksand or not. 62 Iqbal et al.; JPRI, 32(3): 61-68, 2020; Article no.JPRI.55733 2. METHODOLOGY universityand race. This was important in order to establish a relationship between demographic A total of 243 final year pharmacy (semester 7), background and the student’s ability in identifying medical (semester 9) and nursing (semester 7) medication errors. Approximately, each students from a public university in Pakistan respondent took 10 minutes to complete the were invited to participate in this study by vignettes which were distributed in lecture halls. distributing the vignettes. The numbers of respondents were 70 medical students, 123 This study was approved by the institutional pharmacy students, and 50 nursing students. review board of the university. All respondents Stratified sampling was utilized in this study. who are willing to participate signed a consent Inclusion criteriawere final year medical, nursing form. The identities of the respondents were and pharmacy students. The study was made anonymous and confidential throughout performed from July 2018 to November 2018. the study. In this descriptive cross-sectional study, the All statistical analyses were performed using the research tool was distributed to the final year Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS)ver pharmacy, medical and nursing students. The 22. The data obtained from the research tool prescriptions used in this study were an adaption were first summarized by using descriptive of Warholak et al. [18] study instrument which statistics such as frequencies and percentages to was used with permission. Ithad been validated illustrate the respondent’s demographic and contextualized against the research information. Next, inferential statistics i.e. objectives and medication availability in Pakistan. univariate analysis using the Pearson chi-square Respondents were informed about the objectives test was conducted to analyze the association of this study using an explanatory letter attached between the dependent and independent to the vignettes. The research tool was made up variables. Statistical significance for all tests was of three prescriptions and